Sampson McCormick Talks About Being Black and Gay

According to Sampson McCormick, laughter is the best medicine. The award-winning, veteran black LGBTQ comedian and writer released a new comedy project called Church Boy on several streaming outlets earlier this month. The special, which was taped during a run of sold-out shows in Washington D.C. a week before the COVID-19 shut down, and tackles a variety of issues ranging from the challenges that black, gay men face in social institutions like barber shops, the black church, costs of living, gentrification and mental health.

With the state of today’s world with the national Black Lives Matter protests and still abiding by quarantine guidelines, McCormick understands that laughter is a necessity. Church Boy is guaranteed to offer some relief and deep belly laughs.

OUT FRONT caught up with McCormick to talk more about the comedy special, his thoughts on the protests and what he considers to be his own personal challenges about being gay and black.

Hi, Sampson! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me about your new comedy project, Church Boy. Without giving too much away, can you tell us more about it?
I’m going to give everything away. It’s hilarious! [Laughs]. This project, it was something that we created, number one because laughter is always good. Number two, it has been seven years since I put out a live project. Looking at the state of the world, especially right now, I don’t think it could have come at a better time. It’s very challenging for a lot of people. I have been having a lot of conversations with people from both the gay community and the black community, and also our allies. We have been having a lot of Zoom meetings, I email back and forth with a lot of people from the community. Some people, I want to say, feel guilty for laughing right now, but I know that the ability to look at things that are going on allows you to find the humor in them. It helps you process them and get through them. That’s what we need right now.

So, this project is really significant to the current times.
Very much so. If I would have known what was going to happen, not that you can forecast that, maybe we would have come up with a different premise for it, but I think that it is still appropriate because it covers a whole bunch of different topics. It covers LGBTQ topics, which of course is more than appropriate, issues relating to the intersectionality between queerness and blackness and also other social issues. There is something in there for everybody, and it is very relevant to the times. Excluding the stain of what we’re looking at when we turn on the news, which is a good thing. Sometimes it is good to turn that off, back away from it and just look at something that can help you process, but also laugh.

And you wanted to release Church Boy in June to celebrate the season of LGBTQ Pride?
Absolutely.

Since several Pride festivals have either been canceled or will be held digitally, how are you going to celebrate and make this year special?
Sleep [laughs]. You know how hard I have partied over the years? I’m getting old, I’m happy to have a year off. I do miss Pride season, but that’s a lot of partying. As an LGBTQ performer, I have been doing this now for 20 years. June is usually a really busy month. On one hand, the parties are great and the alcohol is always amazing. Cute boys, lesbians. I love lesbians. Being in the community, but also as an artist, I don’t think people understand. Besides from being an artist, it’s also show business, and it is very challenging for anybody who is a minority in this business. So, this year has kind of given me a break from it because I’m burnt out. I will enjoy sleeping til 2 o’clock in the afternoon and eating extra biscuits. There isn’t anyone here but me, I don’t have anyone to impress right now. I can take all my selfies from the neck up.

Like you said, Church Boy touches on issues black, gay men face. Social institutions like barber shops and church. So, what is the biggest challenge you have personally faced being openly gay and black?
There are three things that have been the biggest challenge. One, even though I’m not a religious person anymore, for a lot of black and Latino LGBTQ folks, but I want to speak specifically to the black, gay experience, our upbringing is in the church. We are the church. If you go in there and look at the choir, that’s a gay pride parade right there. That’s a black pride festival. The whole tenor section and a few of the sopranos are a bunch of gay, black men in the church. A lot of the pastors are on the down low. They have a wife, but they are also screwing 2-3 boys that are up in the choir. But they tell me I can’t do whatever I need to do back at the house with a little cute boy. So many of us, we go to these churches where we are told to feel guilty for being who we are, but the pastor is doing the same thing. And the church is in denial about it. So, that’s number one. Having something that created kind of a structure for a lot of our lives. Even if we don’t continue going to church, being told that we’re not loved divinely. That is definitely a spiritual genocide. The human spirit is a very important thing to have, and a lot of these churches are killing black, gay men. A lot of these black churches are killing the black community in a lot of different ways, and those are things that we have to deal with.

The second thing is the racism in the gay community. There are so many different things that we do have in common that we have to fight against as a collective. Then we have this infighting because we have so hard. For health rights, housing rights, equal rights, but we won’t be able to come to the table together as a community and say, you know, I love you no matter what color you are or whatever. We still bring those other issues into the community, and those are things that we need to deal with.

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The last thing is, a lot of people talk about how homophobic the black community is, but I don’t think the black community is more homophobic than any other community. Just like anything else we do, I think it is sensationalized because we do it better. It’s the fact that as a community, we are in the streets right now fighting for our lives. I think a lot of people believe the black community is monolithic, and it is not. A lot of the straight, black men, we call them “hoteps,” they look at everything through a lens of toxic masculinity. They try to make black, gay men in particular, they don’t care about lesbians, they just think they haven’t gotten the right date yet, and I’m like, they don’t’ need no dick because got two or three of those over there in their bookbags. But with gay, black men, they try to make us choose between our gayness and our blackness. I’m like, we can’t do that because when we leave out of the house every day, people don’t see us as gay first. They see us as black first. So, everything that you have to deal with as a black person, you still have to deal with that and the gay stuff. You have to fight battles in the gay community, and you have to fight battles in the black community. And you wonder why I drink [laughs].

What are your thoughts on the national protests happening right now? Do you think the message is being heard, or falling on deaf ears?
You know, I’m going to be very honest with you Denny. I try to be sweet and loving. I wish that we lived in a world where we can simply love the hell out of each other. Love that hatred out of each other. Love the injustice out of the world. Have the conversations over some brownies. Ideally some pot brownies, that would be fabulous. Sit down and be able to have conversations. I know I have the capacity to do it.

Touring in Mississippi, Alabama, Billings, MT, I have made a lot of friends who probably first heard of me when I was talking some shit on Twitter. They’re like, well, the show is $12-$14, let’s spend it and go see this son of bitch. They come out expecting to see a freak show. They expect to see to a very, very flamboyantly clownishly freakishly gay man who hates white people. I’m from D.C., but I had a southern upbringing, and you have this kind of southern church boy who is gay, but also had friends who watch NASCAR and football. So, there’s this thing where people come to the show and I think they feel at home. These are people who I know hate black people and gay people because they come and tell me. They say this is weird because I like you, and I don’t get this. I don’t understand it. I am able to have the conversations with people because even through the ignorance, I know where they’re coming from. I can have a person in Alabama come up and say I don’t like f*gs and I don’t like n*ggers, but I like you. A lot of people would not be able to see the silver lining in that.

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The thing is, I don’t care what color you are, I don’t care how you love. I don’t care about any of that stuff. When somebody creates an emotional connection with your identity, they start to like you. They don’t want nobody else to fuck with you. I don’t like what people are saying about gay people, and I don’t think enough of us do that. They don’t take the time to say okay, well, you said something that I don’t agree with. Some people are ignorant anyway, we know that, but enough people aren’t able to look past the comments and be able to read between the lines. Look for the silver lining because those really are the things that will connect them. I think people were doing that in the 60s and 70s, and I think the 70s were kind of a byproduct of those few conversations people were having in the 60s. People just need to get over themselves and learn how to work out our differences and realize we’re going to have those differences, and that’s okay. It comes down to respect and honor each other as human beings.

Have you always had a passion for comedy?
Without knowing it, yes. I didn’t know what comedy was when I was growing up. Funny story, I wanted to be an opera singer growing up. At an assembly, this opera singer came to our school and she was telling us about opera singing. She asked who wanted to sing, and five girls ran up. She said we need a boy, so I stood and walked up. The kids in the neighborhood came to my house and told my mom that I was singing opera at the school, and I got one of the worst beatings of my life. She said, you cannot sing opera. You need to be doing something productive. I don’t want you to be gay, so I’m going to put in theatre. Oh my God, the irony! So, it was there that I learned that I liked laughter and I knew I had a knack for it, but I didn’t know I could do anything with it.

How has Church Boy been received by audiences so far?
So far so good. We are still promoting it, but the people who looked at it have really enjoyed it.

What is the number one thing you hope people take away from Church Boy?
The number one thing that I hope people take away from Church Boy is that if they have not been on to Sampson, they need to get on to him. The biggest thing though is celebrating our differences. Being able to hear someone else’s perspective that you may not get initially. Find a way to get them. That is what we need to be doing right now. Find a way to get each other because even though the anger is righteous and justified, I prefer to live in a world where we don’t have to set shit on fire and fight each other. We should be able to recognize differences and laugh at them because there’s a lot to laugh at. I do think we have gotten too politically correct, but we were doing a lot better when somebody could say something about fat people and a fat person would say yes, I’m fat. So what? They can then say something about skinny people and then we would laugh. The reality is, even if a person is not saying it out loud, people do have their own personal biases. You are never going to be able to change that. That’s human nature. We need to be able to do that and celebrate those differences and realize that is a part of life. Laugh and keep it pushing.

What’s next for you? Any other upcoming projects we should be on the lookout for?
I just signed a few contracts for some independent films and a couple of television shows on some LGBTQ streaming networks. I am also producing two brand new scripted films. One of them is a major motion picture that people have been waiting for about 25 years. I’m serious when I say 25 years, I literally mean it. It’s a story that I think most black, gay men read when we were in sixth and seventh grade. There were some, of course, in high school and college coming to terms with sexuality in the 90s and early 2000s. This is going to be a film, and I can’t say too much about it, but it’s coming, and people are going to love it. I also look forward to getting back on the road. I miss performing live.

To stay up to date with McCormick, follow him on Instagram (@sampsonmccormick), or visit sampsoncomedy.com.